A new program in Topeka, Kansas, offers incentives worth up to $15,000 to bring workers to the city.

The “Choose Topeka” pilot program from economic development groups in Topeka and Shawnee County will pay people up to $10,000 if they rent and $15,000 if they buy a home, according to a statement from the Greater Topeka Partnership.

Nearly 400 biotech leaders from across the Biohealth Capital Region (BHCR) gathered recently in Bethesda, Maryland at the Bio Innovation Conference, hosted by Maryland Life Sciences (MDLS), a division of the Maryland Tech Council. The event focused on advancements and opportunities for Maryland cell and gene therapy companies and why Maryland is becoming the number one location of choice for growing biotech companies. However, it was the afternoon keynote featuring JLABS @Washintgon, DC’s Michelle McMurry-Heath, MD, PhD, that caused a buzz in the crowd. 

Image: biobuzz-io.cdn.ampproject.org

Its impact is expansive. It can support families, hoist people out of poverty, and advance new products and technology. It can create jobs and boost GDP.

This force for change and uplift is entrepreneurship, and Donna Kelley has seen its influence firsthand in her research. She is part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) U.S. team at Babson College and a member of GEM’s board of directors. A global consortium of more than 400 researchers, GEM is the first and most developed research program on entrepreneurship in the world. Its latest report, on entrepreneurship in the U.S., was released earlier this month.

Pittsburgh’s advanced technology economy has been idling in neutral, some experts say, but a new study believes it doesn’t have to be that way.

Pittsburgh ranked ninth among 35 metro centers nationwide that could become booming innovation centers, according to a new report by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, part of the Brookings Institution, and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a science and technology think tank.

A vast majority of all job growth in high-tech industries is concentrated in just five metro areas, a new report finds. Seattle, of course, ranks among them.

But the report warns of the consequences of having such a large percentage of high-tech job growth in so few places and makes a case for more purposefully spreading tech innovation across the country.

Your late afternoon meeting scheduled for an hour has crept over the 75-minute mark with no clear end in sight. You know you still have a time-sensitive email to send off, and now you’re going to have to make the choice between leaving late or pulling out your laptop after dinner. On the outside, you’re polite, participating in discussion and responding thoughtfully to your coworker who is running the meeting. But on the inside, you’re annoyed. This person just took a giant step over your time boundaries.

Talent-driven economic development is the future (and largely the present) of effective economic development efforts. How should economic development organizations (EDOs) respond?

A recent Brookings Metro report by Joseph Parilla and Sifan Liu offers some answers, including practical examples of how EDOs—in partnership with employers and the education and training system—are changing policy and practice to achieve better outcomes for people, businesses, and communities. The report is a must-read for economic development leaders focused on positioning their localities, regions, and states for a healthy economic future.

What makes someone a growth leader? In conversations we’ve had with business leaders, the answer tends to boil down to a variation of “I know it when I see it.” But it turns out that there is a specific set of attributes that growth leaders share.

In 2019, I have written thousands of pages -- emails, memos, texts, articles like this one. Hundreds of thousands of words to communicate and connect. Most of them have an audience of at least one, even if it’s just a quick note to my wife. But not all of them. Every year, a few thousand of those pages are words no one will ever read.

Is it possible to tell when an employee is on their way out? An extensive study revealed that you don't need psychic abilities to know when receiving a resignation letter is in your future. Researchers at Harvard Business Review asked nearly 100 managers how the behavior of their peers and subordinates shifted in the months prior to their voluntary departures. Additionally, researchers surveyed 100 employees to find out how their own behavior shifted prior to their own voluntary departures. Behaviors listed were whittled down and distributed the survey to additional groups of managers. Here are the top 8 pre-quitting behaviors according to researchers. 

If you’ve been in business long enough, you’ve probably heard the joke that entrepreneurs are the only people who would trade working 40 hours a week for someone else so they can work 80 hours a week for themselves. That always gets a chuckle, but the truth is unless you can effectively replace yourself as you grow, not only will you be stuck grinding for hours on end, but you’ll also limit the potential of your business. 

Merger and acquisitions (M&A) activity within the healthcare industry heightened last year, according to recent research data and this could feed into gains for M&A and healthcare-focused ETFs for traders sensing an opportunity.

“The U.S. healthcare market saw a 14.4 percent increase in mergers and acquisitions from 2017-2018, fueled by soaring domestic venture capital investment – an all-time high of $130.9 billion invested in U.S.-based startups in 2018 alone,” a press release by Sage Growth Partners said. “Compounding the pace and complexity of deal flow are sweeping industry trends ranging from managing and measuring health outcomes to reducing the overall cost of care.”

Brookings and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) are proposing a new concentration of federal investment into 10 metros with a goal of creating new innovation hubs. The Case for Growth Centers is likely an early entry of what will be many suggestions between now and next November for “massive federal” policies, but may be one of the most directly relevant to regional innovation economies. More details on their proposal and its potential impacts follow.

These days, it is almost impossible to find a small business where everything is done at the home location, by full-time employees. We are in the age of outsourcing, by any of many popular names, including subcontracting, freelancing, and virtual assistants. These approaches allow your startup to grow more rapidly, save costs, but costly mistakes can lead to business failure.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

CLEVELAND — Cleveland business leaders say after hosting a conference centered around Blockchain technology for two years in a row, the third annual conference could be showing off parts of a new co-working space in the heart of downtown Cleveland.

Right now, Charisma Curry's start-up, Parents in Motion , works from a co-working space called StartMart in Tower City with other entrepreneurs often just a few feet away.

How often do you have a day that leaves you feeling not only exhausted but also like you didn’t actually accomplish anything? If your answer is “always” or “very often,” you are not alone. In most professional jobs today, multitasking has become a coping strategy.

One of the most remarkable experiments in history — a trio of giant machines that listen for ripples in space-time called gravitational waves — just got more powerful and precise.

That's thanks to a new light-squeezing instrument that researchers installed in the experiment's main machine: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Its Italian counterpart, Virgo, got a similar tool.

Image: https://www.businessinsider.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is coming to talk with Clevelanders.

Hester Peirce, who grew up in Cleveland Heights, will speak at a public “fireside chat” on Monday at Case Western Reserve University. She graduated from CWRU with a degree in economics in 1993.

At Monday’s event, Peirce will talk about startup capital formation, entrepreneurship in the Midwest and the role of the SEC. A networking reception will follow.

Add Deloitte to the list of entities interested in steering promising legal tech startups into developing must-have tech tools.

Yesterday, the Big Four giant announced the launch of Legal Ventures, a program giving early-stage legal tech companies access to Deloitte’s consulting, technology, legal and investment expertise. In return, Deloitte will leverage the startups’ products and services.

Perceptive Advisors, an investment firm with a long track record of life science investing across all points of development, is now stepping up to pump money into companies at the earliest stages with a new $210 million venture capital fund.

The Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund (PXV) is led by Chris Garabedian (pictured above, center), a veteran biotech executive whose experience includes stops at Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD), Celgene, and Sarepta Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SRPT). He’s currently the chairman and CEO of Xontogeny, a Boston-based life sciences accelerator.

Image: https://xconomy.com